A Play in One Act
by
Joseph Eastburn
Copyright 1996
SETTING: A bar. Tables clustered around.
AT RISE: At one of the tables a girl, MEG, and a guy, BRAD, are talking. Both have beers. A juke-box whines out a low tune in the background. No one else around. Almost closing time.
MEG
When my father had his first affair, that’s when it hit me. I watched him systematically dismantle his life, his family, his job of twenty years, his place in the community. Then I find out his father was an alcoholic.
(beat)
Now my little sister sniffs white-out. Right at her desk. It’s cross-generational. Same disease, different drug.
BRAD
Yeah, yeah.
MEG
And my other sister’s anorexic.
BRAD
She’s in the middle?
MEG
Right.
BRAD
(Significantly)
The starved child.
MEG
She’s one of those people, you can almost hear her metabolism, it’s geared so high. Once, when she was about fifteen, she gained some weight. We all told her she looked great. She immediately stopped eating. She’s gonna’ go out like that 70’s chick from Downey, California, what’s her name?
BRAD
Karen Carpenter.
MEG
Just lying in her bed one morning, mother brings up breakfast on tray to a corpse. I almost forgot. My mother’s a compulsive shopper.
BRAD
You’re the oldest.
MEG
Of course. The hero.
BRAD
You’re like…what?
MEG
What?
BRAD
Twenty-five?
MEG
(Adjusts herself in her chair.)
I’ll be twenty-seven next month.
BRAD
(Nodding, looking at her.)
That’s a nice age.
MEG
So, with me, it was, like, forget it. I like ran around trying to take care of my sisters, keep my mother from going crazy, my father from raping children. I actually thought I’d read about some mass grave outside of town, and when they exhumed the bodies, they’d find out someone in my family did it.
BRAD
What did you end up with?
MEG
(Looking at him.)
I’m very oral.
BRAD
Really.
MEG
I’m also an anal-compulsive, neatnick, control-freak.
BRAD
(Nodding, smiling.)
All right.
MEG
Nothing in moderation.
(THEY both sip their beers.
Pause.)
BRAD
Rescuing is my drug of choice.
MEG
Uh-huh.
BRAD
And food, sure. I’d pick something off the floor and put in my mouth before I’d throw it away.
MEG
Brush it off a little.
BRAD
Like there’d never be another piece of food, ever.
MEG
On the planet.
BRAD
Right. And if I’m not taking care of somebody, I go crazy inside.
MEG
That’s the only way you feel good.
BRAD
Me?
MEG
Anybody.
BRAD
Exactly. I mean, before my sister went crazy, she sold all my parent’s furniture to these tourists from Cleveland and I actually helped them move it out of the house. My father drove up while I was rolling the dinette down the front walk. He gets out of the car, asks me what I’m doing. And I honestly didn’t know. I was in a fugue state.
MEG
A trance like.
BRAD
I might as well be sleep-walking when my sister starts on me. She calls me on the phone and I just start to lose it. I once threw my phone through the window. I mean, it was bouncing around the fire-escape, people were scattering on the street, glass was falling…
MEG
Really?
BRAD
Every phone I’ve ever had gets broken. Or when I get off the phone, sometimes, I’ll get so angry, I’ll… take it out on my refrigerator.
MEG
How exactly do you do that?
BRAD
Just slam the door twenty, fifty, a hundred times, whatever it takes. Until it never closes again–that’s the idea. Then I feel normal inside.
MEG
You know, there are… other ways.
BRAD
It’s like I “come to” after I break something. Like I’ve been released from some spell, I don’t know.
MEG
Well, you’re striking back.
BRAD
(Thinking back)
I’ve broken a couple of toasters…kicked the stove door in.
MEG
(Studying him.)
Okay.
BRAD
I have this sense my life is improving.
(Beat.)
I just don’t have any appliances.
MEG
As long as it’s not a person. I mean, you wouldn’t hurt, like, a girl for instance.
BRAD
No way.
MEG
Just inanimate objects.
BRAD
Most of the girls I’ve known.
MEG
You’re terrible!
(SHE reaches over and pours
the rest of his beer for him,
pouting.)
BRAD
(Smiling.)
I’m just kidding.
(SHE downs her beer.)
MEG
No, you aren’t.
(beat)
I have these cousins, their family system is so toxic, they each sacrifice a different body-part so they won’t have to go home for the holidays.
BRAD
(Looking at her.)
Which parts?
MEG
My one cousin, he loses his legs in a car accident Christmas Eve, the other one goes in for blood work for a month, comes out in February. The third one puts her eye out in a department store.
BRAD
That’s a statement.
MEG
Sick.
BRAD
It is.
MEG
(Sadly.)
That’s my family.
BRAD
Our stories are a lot alike.
MEG
Mine are worse.
BRAD
My father had an affair too.
MEG
(Perking up.)
No.
BRAD
It broke up our family, sure. In fact, I’m not only the middle child of my family, the woman he ended up with had two children and I was in the middle of them too. Then I was doing shuttle diplomacy between the two families, taking my little sister back and forth for visitation rights. Mr. In-between.
MEG
You probably do that with relationships.
BRAD
It’s like an instinct, a homing device in my brain–that leads me to the middle of anything.
MEG
(Solemnly.)
Fear of intimacy.
BRAD
It’s just a habit.
MEG
You’ll never get over that. It’s progressive and untreatable.
(Staring.)
I like that.
BRAD
What?
MEG
Nothing…
(Looks at her watch.)
Oh, listen, sorry…
(SHE’s about to stand.)
Gotta’ get going.
BRAD
(Suddenly.)
My cousin killed somebody.
MEG
(This stops her.)
Come on.
BRAD
It was down in Georgia. He was going to Tech and he was six-two and could run the hundred in nine-seven. The coaches went crazy trying to get him on the football team, offered him cash, girls, his own apartment, but he wouldn’t take off his clothes in the locker room.
MEG
How twisted.
BRAD
They dragged him into the locker room, and he belted some guy; the guy fell back, split his head open on a locker handle.
MEG
I guess that ended his college career.
BRAD
(Pause.)
I don’t know why I told you that.
MEG
I’m touched.
BRAD
(A little embarrassed
now.)
Great.
MEG
No, really I am. That was hard for you.
BRAD
Why should it be?
MEG
(SHE is waiting, watching
him.)
You tell me.
BRAD
(Swallows.)
I don’t know.
MEG
It’s getting late.
(SHE stands.)
BRAD
(Watching her get up.)
That’s a good color for you.
MEG
(Looking down.)
Oh, my mother is so happy I’m buying clothes. When I was home, she would always take me to the mall. Everything we’d pass, she’d say “That would look good on you.” I’d say “No, Mom, it would look good on you.”
(Brushing off her blouse)
Control is my legacy.
BRAD
Right.
(Stands, touches her shoulder.)
That’s nice… material.
MEG
(Adjusting her blouse.)
When I was in college, I didn’t dress. You know, I’d tell people, hey, I’m trying to get my papers in on time, I don’t care what I look like. People would say, yeah, but you’re naked.
BRAD
That would really be a good color for you.
MEG
(Blushing. Long pause.)
Bet you’d like to see that one.
BRAD
Yes, I would.
(Pause. SHE looks at him.)
MEG
When?
BRAD
What?
MEG
Look, do I have to throw in my anorexic sister to entice you? I’m saying yes.
BRAD
OH. I wasn’t expecting…I mean I–wasn’t trying to–
MEG
Yes, you were.
BRAD
(Beat.)
All right, I was, but–do you have to come right out and say it?
MEG
No…
(Beat.)
But I have this toaster-oven that might really do it for you.
BRAD
(Laughs nervously.)
Give me a break.
MEG
Wanna’ slam some doors?
BRAD
Sure, but…let me ask you.
MEG
Oh, forget it.
(Her bag over her shoulder
now. A tight smile.)
Maybe some other time.
(SHE walks away.)
BRAD
(Running after her.)
Hey, wait!
(HE catches her at the door.)
BRAD
(A deep breath.)
I’m a debtor.
MEG
Get out.
BRAD
(Nodding.)
Thirty-two thousand dollars on, like, six credit cards.
(Reaching in his pocket,
pulling out a card.)
I just got a new card today. Unlimited credit line. No payments for three years.
MEG
Wow.
BRAD
I’m still paying for the shit I bought ten years ago. None of it fits me. Or it’s broken.
MEG
(Shaking her head.)
I don’t know.
BRAD
Sometimes I bet online.
MEG
No.
BRAD
With plastic, sure. When you lose, you get this super-charge dive-depression. Like you’re falling a hundred stories. I’ll be getting bills for the rest of recorded time.
MEG
That is so sad.
BRAD
I’m really fucked up.
MEG
(Suddenly very moved.)
Yes, you are!
BRAD
(Pause. HE shrugs.)
I don’t know what to do.
MEG
(A shiver.)
…Neither do I.
(Pause. THEY look away,
awkwardly hold hands.)
BLACK OUT
THE END